Affiliations

Monika's research explores the digital dimension of contemporary ?mobile lives' with a focus on IT ethics. She combines qualitative, often ethnographic studies of everyday practices, social theory and design through mobile, experimental, ?inventive' engagement with industry and stakeholders. An analytical orientation to intersecting physical and virtual mobilities, blocked movements and immobilities of people, objects and information drives this work. Monika's most recent research brings this perspective to the informationalization of large-scale multi-agency emergency response, which raises opportunities and challenges around social media-based public engagement, agile and ?whole community' approaches to disaster response, data sharing, data protection and privacy.

Current Teaching

MA Mobilities, Society and Change

Media in a Global Age

Design: Management and Policy (LICA)

Design 101 (LICA)

FASS 507 Introduction to the Philosophy of the Social Sciences

Research Interests

I'm interested in how people collaborate, at work or elsewhere. Everyday material and epistemic practices - on the move or in situ - including experiences and practices of place-making, distributed collaboration, collective intelligence are the focus of my studies.

A combination of social science, design, computing and, more recently, IT Law generates analytical insight and leverage. My research develops a deeper understanding of the opportunities and risks inherent in the ?informationalization' of increasingly mobile ways of living, with the aim of informing more socially and ethically circumspect, productive innovation in technology and practice. In an era that has been designated the ?century of disasters' following a Royal Society report, such opportunities and risks are particularly pressing and my research responds to a growing need to address them. On the one hand, digital technologies allow societies to detect and deal with risks more effectively. On the other, disasters call for exceptions to normal rules (e.g. of data protection), and digital technologies can ease exceptions that may have far-reaching, positive and negative unintended consequences. My recent publications on ?Privacy, Security, Liberty', ?A New Manhattan Project' and ?Peripheral Response: Microblogging during the Norway Attacks' map societal challenges in relation to disaster response. This work defines a broader ?inventive' IT Ethics research agenda for efforts of ?designing' mobilities and a digital economy, addressing opportunities, such as public engagement, organizational interoperability and data sharing, and risks around privacy and social sorting.

My approach is ethnographic and analytically rooted in ethnomethodology, science and technology studies, mobilities research and phenomenology. My work critically informs participatory, interdisciplinary socio-technical innovation. I actively co-design and facilitate the appropriation of cutting edge ubiquitous computing visions, technologies, platforms, and content in different settings (see, for example,Bridge, Workspace and PalCom).

I am Director of mobilities.lab - an interdisciplinary collaboration between several different departments at Lancaster and a range of international academic and industrial partners. Mobilities.lab research connects different fields of research: Mobilities Research, Design, Ethnomethodology, Science and Technology Studies, Participatory Design, Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), and Ubiquitous Computing.

The book series Changing Mobilities, which I edit together wih Peter Adey, invites contributions that address the empirical realities of changing mobilities and opportunities to inform design, policy and social change.

Profile

The SecInCoRe project identifies data sets, processes, information systems and business models used by first responders and Police authorities to inform the development of a dynamic and secure cloud based ?common information space'. The main goals of SecInCoRe are:

To develop a pan-European inventory of past critical events and disaster and their consequences focusing collaborative emergency operations and real-time decision making while taking ethics, law, social practices and privacy into account.

Understand ethical, legal and social issues and the regulatory environment, and the constraints and possibilities they imply for the use of pan European cloud based information management services.

Design of a secure, dynamic cloud based knowledge base and communication system concept including the ability to use emergency information by means of a trans-European communication infrastructure.

A collaborative design project funded by the EU Commission. We are co-designing a system to support interoperability (both technical and social) in large-scale emergency relief efforts with stakeholders. The system will be a bridge between multiple agencies: It will help to mediate the activities of the command and professional staff, which is where most of the strategic decision making must occur; it will also help to merge the systems and resources from different agencies into a cohesive whole and support collaboration with user generated 'crisis informatics'.

This project will bring together a group of social scientists (sociology; anthropology), computer scientists (mobile computing; web2.0; distributed systems), management scientists (consumer behaviour) and designers (innovation) to develop next generation systems that empower citizens to create bottom-up innovative solutions to 'wicked' societal problems. It will promote cross-disciplinary working across Lancaster University (and beyond) between the School of Computing & Communications, Sociology, Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster Environment Centre, and Lancaster Institute for Contemporary Arts.

This pilot project studies the 'new' interaction order from different empirical and analytical perspectives. Drawing on sociology, ethnomethodology, criminology, geography, and design, we are carrying out studies of 'behaviour in public places' in Manchester.

This project explores how medical practitioners can mobilize local and expert domain knowledge and dovetail it with new design and managerial skills to implement the Practice Based Commissioning (PBC) framework to shape NHS service provision. Designing new health and care service models and facilities requires creative, managerial and/or design skills and this 18 month research project is part of the EPSRC funded innovation centred called HACIRIC (Health and Care Infrastructure Research and Innovation Centre).

In this research cluster, we investigate digital economy practices that are emerging around the capabilities of social, mobile and pervasive technologies. We explore how we can develop new services, new forms of exchange and interaction that benefit the whole of the UK economy.

As computing technologies become an ever more 'invisible' and powerful part of our mobile lives, it is crucial that people are supported in understanding what these technologies are doing and what they could do for them.

Mobile workers often generate dynamic configurations of spaces, information, and people - within the office, but also beyond. These practices pose great challenges to the computer as-we-know-it today and open up a range of opportunities for innovative design. Spatial computing environments respond to these challenges. They exploit technical possibilities to support the social and spatial organization of work.

01/11/2011 →
BRIDGE is a collaborative project co-funded by the EU Seventh Framework Programme. BRIDGE will build a system to support interoperability – both technical and social – in large-scale emergency man ...
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01/02/2011 → 31/10/2012
This pilot project studies the 'new' interaction order from different empirical and analytical perspectives. Drawing on sociology, ethnomethodology, criminology, geography, and design, we are carrying ...
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30/06/20111) Monika Buscher of Mobilities.lab and CeMoRe has been recommended for the award of 'Doctor Honoris Causa' by the Academic Council of Roskilde University, having been nominated by both the Department ... Read more»

05/05/2011Call for papers for a workshop at ECSCW 2011
CSCWSmart? Collective Intelligence and CSCW in Crisis Situations
There are potentially rich synergies between socio-technical innovation in collective i ... Read more»